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Blue Mountains, New South Wales 1984

I must have been about 10 or 11 years old on a family holiday in the Blue

Mountains, near Sydney Australia.

It was evening time, and we were at a lookout, to see the view

while the sun was setting.

As I look across a gorge, I could see very steep mountainside about 200 metres away. I was somehow drawn to what looked like a strange figure, standing motionless, but it appeared to be looking at me. Was this a strange looking tree stump? I tried to gain some perspective from the trees around it an realised that it was very big, maybe two or 3 metres tall.

Then, suddenly my heart skipped a beat...I started to feel a chill down my spine as I watched the figure move. Not just slightly, but a few meters, like it was trying to get a better look at me.

What, was this a person? It looked nothing like a person. It was too big, and odd shaped, with very long legs, a smaller torso in proportion to a human, and a large head. It was a greyish brown colour all over.

Was this a bigfoot? I had heard of bigfoots in America, but I had never even heard of a bigfoot in Australia. Was this some kind of joke? It had to be someone dressed up.

But the strange thing was it seemed to be in too much of a dangerous position, on really steep mountainous terrain, with no paths or roads there. It seemed like an awful lot of effort to go to in order to play a prank. There is no way it could get anywhere near civilization before dark. Whatever it was, it was spending the night in the bush.

I quickly called my brother over to witness what I was seeing. He could see it too. I was not seeing things. He was just as amazed as I was, and we both agreed we were eye witnesses to an Australian Bigfoot. It continued to watch us, moving now and then, and then standing still, like it was trying to blend into the hillside. But, it was close enough to make out facial features.

My brother and I then pointed the creature out to my father, who also could see it. It baffled his scientific mind, as he was a biochemist back then.

Eventually the sun went down, and we moved on. We told a few of our friends over the course of the next few weeks, and months. I think most people humoured us, not sure if we were trying to joke around, or we were just a little bit crazy. There was no social media back then, so we didn’t even create a ripple into Australian folklore.

It wasn’t until I did some research at the library, that I realised that we had seen what the indigenous Australians call a ‘Yowi’, and that Yowis had been sighted many times before.